Avi Dichter

President, Advisory Committee

3RD International HLS Conference

Avi Dichter, BA, MBA, former Minister of Public Security, former Minister of Home Front Defense, and former Director of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), is Chairman of the Foundation for the Welfare of Holocaust Survivors in Israel. He headed the ISA from 2000-2005, a period of significant Palestinian terrorist activity against Israel (known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada or Second Intifada).

In 1996, immediately after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he was appointed head of the ISA’s Security and Protection Division (responsible for protecting dignitaries, aviation, embassies and strategic information) with a mandate to rehabilitate the body. As a Member of Knesset from 2006-2012, he chaired the Subcommittee for Security Conception and Power Building. As Minister of Public Security, Avi formed the new modus operandi of signal intelligence (SIGINT) for the Israel Police, mainly to support a new national crime fighting unit similar to the FBI. He also put in place Israel’s witness protection program and signed cooperation agreements with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, with Canada’s Ministry of Public Safety, with Germany’s Ministry of the Interior, and with other EU countries. Avi Dichter has also been a Research Fellow at Washington’s Brookings Institute.